Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Associate Professor Lisa Ekstam, Lund University, Sweden
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Björg Sigridur Anna Thordardottir, Oslo Met,
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Anners Lerdal, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Bjørn Hofmann, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Anne Marie Mork Rokstad, Nasjonalt senter for aldring og helse
Summary
Day care is assumed to play an important role in dementia care and is highlighted as an important service for home-dwelling persons with dementia. The aim of the day care is to provide attendees with activities, stimulation, good experiences, and meaningful days.
The overall objective of the thesis was to explore the impact of day care on people with dementia and gain an understanding of how day care staff facilitate this service. The present thesis comprises three studies were study 1 explored attendees experiences with day care designed for people with dementia, study 2 aimed to gain an understanding of the staff’s experiences regarding how they enhance engagement and participation in activities of attendees with dementia in the day care, and study 3 investigated, at a 24-month follow-up period, the self-reported quality of life (QoL) of people with dementia attending day care designed for those with dementia, compared to people with dementia not attending such day care.
We found that day care was experienced as positively affecting the participants’ physical functioning, cognition, well-being, and home situation because the day care provided social stimulation, meals, and activities. The day care also contributed to maintaining rhythm and structure in everyday life, and the staff made the day care a safe place to be and contributed to that the participants created a sense of belonging.
Further, it was found that the staff's main goal was to create meaningful days for attendees. To achieve this, the staff highlighted the importance of having individual knowledge about the attendees, of creating a balanced group composition, of the staff possessing personal competence and skills, and of using activities in different ways.
Finally, we found that people with dementia attending day care reported significantly higher self-reported QoL than the control group at all time points, however the overall trend in QoL did not differ significantly. Participants with shallow or no awareness who attended day care had significantly higher scores on Quality of Life in Alzheimer’s Disease (QoL-AD) than participants with full awareness who attended day care. More depressive symptoms and higher functional dependency were associated with lower self-reported QoL.
Due to population aging dementia is a major public health concern with increasing prevalence in coming years and given the heterogeneity of the home-dwelling people with dementia more flexible, differentiated and individually tailored day care is needed to address each individual needs and level of functioning. It is also suggested that day care should promote health and QoL even more by including the attendees more in ongoing activities and by offering multicomponent activities that stimulate physical function, abilities in daily living, and cognitive function. Social stimulation is an important component, both on its own and as part of other activities.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.